When you are bit by the travel bug, you will take some risks that lead to delightful experiences!!!! We chose to accompany our brother and sister-in-law (Royce and Gabriella) to visit her family in Lima, Peru. My husband is a geography teacher and he is always interested in learning about a new culture. I’m always on the look out to photograph cultural arts and also every day street scenes that help tell the story of the society and their way of life. We spent several weeks in Lima getting to know her beautiful family, going shopping and being amazed by the mounds of fresh and local produce, and learning to make coffee the Peruvian way. They’ve been using Cold Brew before American’s marketed it as a yuppie trend. We learned how to hide in the bushes as our sister-in-law bartered for better rates on taxi fares. We laughed as the taxi driver was aghast when he realized how many and how big his American fare was. He drove carelessly – but we learned that all drivers in Peru use their horns constantly. There was a rhythm to the driving method – yet we agreed to put our lives in their hands. We also learned to love the food, the music, the dancing, the large sense of community that Peruvian families posses.We learned the hard way how to turn the water heater on before we took a shower. We learned that Peruvian women of all ages LOVED to dance and joined clubs where a professional dancer will keep their feet moving for hours. Oh, we just loved visiting Peru. We especially loved the pride that the Peruvian children took in keeping their school uniforms clean. School is not taken for granted in Peru. Because the Peruvian Culture was formed by the kinship between the Amerindian and Hispanic cultures it is home to many different groups of people, thousands of different food dishes, and a great variety of genres of music, art, and theatre. Please see the link below for details of Peru Culture. You will be amazed by the richness of this beautiful country.
When we learned that our sister-in-law’s mother and father had never had the opportunity to visit Machu Picchu, we arranged to take one of the most amazing trips of our lives. Machu Picchu is one of the seven wonders of the world for very good reasons. Machu Picchu is a 15th-century Inca site that was never discovered by the Spanish and is located in the small province of Urubamba in Cusco. The site was excellently preserved from the elements of nature and in 1911 Hiram Bingham III, a professor at Yale University, found the site while searching for other treasures. What a delightful surprise it was! The unique stone construction of Machu Picchu is built against a cliff with a drop of 400m, which overlooks the Urubamba River and this makes a flight into Cusco extremely tricky (and very scary!!!)
When the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizzaro arrived during the 1500’s in what is now modern day Peru, he brought with him disease and destruction to an entire Inca Empire. The Incas first believed that Pizzaro was a god due to his light skin. They soon learned that his goal was to conquer and bring the Western rule to their civilization. This invasion is yet another sad story of European society’s “dominance” over the New World, sadly achieved in the name of Christianity. As we viewed the cultural structures and arts of Cusco we saw evidence of Inca culture alongside Spanish culture. Trapezoid shaped rock walls were accompanied by curved arch doorways. “Peruvian cuisine is a fusion of culinary tradition of ancient Peru with Spanish cuisine.” Peruvian alpaca wool products were interspersed with Spanish clothing designs. This video shows the Magic art of the Inca weaving through a group of traditional Peruvian women who wish to save their ancient art. It is well worth the time to watch. We hope to return to South America again someday soon and Peru will always be on our travel list.